


Firelight Gifts

by navree



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Suicide Attempt, enjoy yourselves, this is just what happens when I notice some plot holes in this shitshow, what's a bughead idk her?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 15:50:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12112065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navree/pseuds/navree
Summary: The flames gives them all a heated cast, as if they were a trio of devils looking at the Hell they've just escaped from.Cheryl, Jughead, Veronica. They're too young to have suffered the way they have, to have lived through Riverdale the way they have.





	Firelight Gifts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MojoMore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MojoMore/gifts).



> This doesn't **directly** reference any of my past Jeronica works, not directly, but you can choose to believe it takes place in that same "canon" if you wish. This is just the product of too much Adderall and not enough homework to preoccupy me, and writer's block on my Hamlet project and my Dark Universe project. Also dedicating this to MojoMore, who keeps on leaving such lovely comments on my stuff. Thank you ducky!!  
>  as always, comments (either positive or constructive) are always welcome and much appreciated!

Cheryl is still shivering violently when Jughead puts a quilt around her shoulders. They've all covered her in layers upon layers, made sure she's dry and in different clothes, and Veronica is now stoking a fire while Betty takes Archie to the ER for his hand. There had been a debate on whether or not to do the same for Cheryl, before she, still dripping and blue lipped, had shook her head and warned, through chattering teeth, that whoever tried to drag her to a hospital would face her wrath. After that, they had all figured that a Cheryl who was still lucid enough to give overdramatic threats would ultimately be all right. 

"I'm gonna go...make some tea, or something." Veronica's hesitant murmur cut through the silence, an unusual occurrence for a girl with such a satin soft voice. Jughead nodded, still rubbing at Cheryl's shoulders lightly. Veronica's footsteps begin, and then fade away as she heads to the kitchen, leaving dark haired boy and fire haired girl alone for probably the first time in their entire lives. Jughead takes his hands off of her, and sits back on his heels, paps braced against his thighs. Cheryl is still staring blankly at the burning wood, as if spotting something he hadn't in the embers. 

"Cheryl?" She doesn't respond, but her shoulders shift slightly, hopefully a sign of acknowledgment. Which is slightly problematic, because he hadn't had much of a game plan beyond saying her name. Jughead doesn't know what to say. It's a first for him, when he usually has far too many words than are good for him, but here he is. Wordless. He can't fathom Cheryl's pain, doesn't want to try, doesn't want to touch the rabbit hole of grief that had poked and prodded her until she tried to drown in the icy current of Sweetwater River. 

He sighs, heavily, and takes his hat off, twisting the knitted fabric in his lap. He notices a bulge, in his pocket, and briefly forgets what it is. And then he remembers. He reaches in, takes out the bejeweled arachnid, feels the weight of it in his fingers. 

"I want you to have this back." She turns to him, although her gaze is on his hands. "Your iconic spider brooch." There's an attempt at a smile on Jughead's part, and he hopes it's not his imagination that makes him think he sees Cheryl's lips twitch. "It's yours, and besides, it's...well, it's a bit much for me, don't you think?" She reaches out for it, almost fearful, as if at the last second he's going to snatch his hand back. Jughead keeps it steady when her fingers, warmer than they were an hour ago, make contact with his skin. 

"It didn't really go with your hat." Jughead smiles, a full face smile, because Cheryl's voice may be reedy and thin and shaking but it's _Cheryl's_ voice. And that means that she'll be OK, which gives him such an enormous sense of relief that his chest almost aches from it. She takes the brooch in her hands, sets it on the ground in front of her. When Jughead pulls his fingers back, he notices they are shaking slightly. "You have a sibling, right Jughead?" She's still not looking at him, but Jughead feels exposed anyway. Ordinarily, he wouldn't respond, simply shrug it off or snap that it was none of Cheryl's business. But her question doesn't feel malicious, moreso curious, as if she's honestly unsure of how many members of the Jones family there are. 

"Yeah," he says, clearing his throat. "Yeah, uh, Jellybean. She lives with my mom." Cheryl nods, her eyes still trained on the carpet. Somewhere in another room, there's the high whistle of the kettle. "She's younger than me though." _Not like Jason_. The words hang between them, and Cheryl looks at him then. 

Her eyes are bleary and bloodshot, with a too bright shine in them, a glassy reflection, and they look _tired_. Unbearably, horrifically tired. Jughead grinds his jaw against the pit in his stomach, and holds her gaze with his. 

"And...how would you feel if she was gone?" Again, there's no cruelty behind the question, no hidden trick. Jughead doesn't want to think about it, doesn't want to think of a world where Jellybean is suddenly gone. He wouldn't be able to handle it. If it had been Jellybean they'd found in the river? If it had been her corpse, bloated and rotting, with a bullet wound to the head? If it had been Jellybean, if anything like that happened to Jellybean, he wouldn't survive. And it's too much, too much even now, even hypothetically, and he feels the tightness in his throat, feels his eyes sting.

"I'd feel like I wanna die." Probably not the best thing to say to someone who had just tried to drown herself in a freezing river, but Jughead feels like he owes Cheryl his honesty. They all owe each other that. "You're not...abnormal for feeling like this about your brother, Cheryl, about what happened to him." She nods, and to his horror a tear slips down her cheek. He can handle many things, but he's unsure he can handle Cheryl crying, not when the last time had resulted in her using him as a human punching bag. 

"Thank you Jughead." He puts a hand on her arm, touch soft and light, and hopefully comforting. There are footsteps again, and Veronica's back, a steaming mug in her hands. She crouches by Cheryl's side, close enough that Jughead can smell her perfume, smell the shampoo she uses in her hair. 

"Here," Veronica whispers, pressing the mug into Cheryl's grip. "It's rose tea, I found some in the cupboard. It'll warm you up." Unlike him, she's more tactile with the other girl, an arm around her shoulders, squeezing reassuringly. He marvels at how they look, the three of them, huddled here by the coals. The flames gives them all a heated cast, as if they were a trio of devils looking at the Hell they've just escaped from. It's an apt description. 

He stands when Veronica does, and reaches for her hand almost instinctively. Veronica lets him take it, twines her fingers with his, and Jughead finds that he needs this touch, this human contact. He remembers the first time he touched her, really touched her, mere seconds after they had seen Clifford Blossom shoot his own son. He remembers the way Veronica's shoulders shook with sobs, remembers his own gasping breath. He remembers rubbing circles between Veronica's shoulder blades, remembers the quiet soothing noises he made, remembers how she'd leaned into his hand. 

"D'you think she'll be OK?" He asks as he pulls himself out of his reverie, as they move to stand in the doorway between living room and rest of house. Veronica signs and lifts her shoulders almost helplessly. She's dropped his hand. 

"I don't know," Veronica says honestly, softly. "I can't imagine how she's feeling right now." 

"I don't want to." He says it without thinking, his inner eye wandering back to the unfathomable imagine of Jellybean, robbed of the life that made her so precious. Veronica's smile is sympathetic, but she doesn't take his hand again. Instead, her fingers brush against his face, lightly, her palm resting on his cheek for a brief moment. Jughead leans into it, and entertains wrapping his arms around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. He's strung out, spread thin by everything that's happened, and he almost gives in. But Veronica pulls away, and he leans back against the wall, feeling emotionally spent.

"I'm gonna stay with her for the rest of the night, if you want to go." Jughead looks back at Cheryl, at her drinking her tea as she stares at the firelight, the jewels of the spider brooch glistening.

"Fantastic, I could use the company. I'll order us all some food from Pop's." Veronica smiles at him, and he smiles back. She walks away, sits down next to Cheryl and pulls her fiery head onto her shoulder. Jughead stays by the doorway, smiling for a bit longer, before he straightens and moves forward to join them.

He wouldn't have left anyway.


End file.
